Taarabt scored twice to finally give the Rs their first win in the Premier League this season, at the 17th time of asking, over Fulham and lift Redknapp's men off the bottom of the table in the process – the second goal being a fine run and shot from the edge of the area with the outside of his boot.

"He’s hard work," Redknapp told reporters. "He was a complete fruitcake at Tottenham and he can still be a bit of a nut. But his heart is in the right place, he wants to do well.

"I took him off last week and he wasn’t in the best of moods and didn’t behave in the best of ways so I had a good heart-to-heart chat with him and he’s responded.

"He’s temperamental but he’s an amazing talent. He’s my type of player, I love people with that ability."

The former Tottenham manager, who is unbeaten in his first four games in charge of QPR since taking over from Mark Hughes, went on to draw parallels between Taarabt's talents and that of one of his former players when managing West Ham, Paolo Di Canio.

"I had Di Canio and this boy is a genius, he can play with anybody," he continued. "You’ve just got to keep him going. Talented people like that are difficult to handle.

"Paolo was difficult to handle but he was genius who could win you match and Adel is the same.

"He can be top, top. He’s got ability like not many people you’ve ever seen in your life. He’s like Di Canio, who I thought was a fantastic player, one of the all-time greats at West Ham.

"This boy is the same, he can do things nobody else can do. No one can do what he can do. He’s amazing. He nutmegs people and he goes past two or three and they’re hanging on to him but they can’t get the ball off him. It’s amazing."